“Bawihi…” He softly whispered to her, as he pulled her hair back gently beneath the pale moonlight. She looked at him with her soft innocent eyes and parted her trembling lips… She sighed, “I’ll forever be yours… Bawiha.”
.............
The young couple had been in love since time immemorial. They could be you and me, for they represent every young Mizo guy and girl in Mizoram.
In our Mizo culture, unlike most other Indian cultures, being in a relationship at an early age is not only accepted, but sometimes encouraged by our parents too. It is perfectly normal for young boys to visit a young girl at her house and woo her. This concept is called “Nula rim” (Nula means a woman who is single, and rim means to court).
Traditionally, during the process of “rimming”, it is the duty of the girl to welcome the guy (who is sometimes accompanied by his wingman) to her home. She makes tea for her suitor and sits with him in the living room. Then they talk about different things, trying to see if they have anything in common or whether he can make her laugh with his corny jokes.
Sometimes, she gets multiple suitors coming from different places (and such women are called “nula luck”). In such a scenario, the second suitor usually leaves on seeing that somebody’s already beaten him to the house, but there are also incidents in which guys from different places do sit together, each one trying to impress the girl and outdo the others (pretty much like a Group Discussion round of an MBA admission process).
Meanwhile, her parents too do not get involved and while most parents move to the bedroom to give their daughter privacy with her suitor/s, there are also some who do stay within earshot of the conversation, spying and listening to make sure nothing hanky-panky is going on and that no lines are crossed.
The girl eventually ends up liking one of the boys, and they soon become a couple. He lovingly calls her “Bawihi”, and she returns that love by calling him “Bawiha”. The words bawiha and bawihi means “Loved one”. People in love show their affection to each other by uttering those words to each other.
However the concept of “bawihi” and “bawiha” is not something new in our Mizo society.
During the days of “Zawlbuk” (a dormitory right next to the Chieftain’s house, where all the young lads of a village would sleep together. Useful especially if warriors from different clans raided their village as all the young men could quickly assemble and fight back), there were times when the girlfriend of one of the young warriors would hide behind the bushes below the Zawlbuk and wait for everybody to sleep.
Then she would gently call out, “Bawiha…” in the middle of the night. Her lover would then secretly leave the Zawlbuk and whisper back, “Bawihi…” In the darkness of the night, they would keep signaling “bawiha, bawihi” to each other and move towards the sound until they had found each other.
Such was the sweetness and romance of bawiha and bawihi.
.............
At this point, my friend could not control himself anymore. He fell to the ground and laughed uncontrollably, tears gushing out from his eyes. And then taking a deep breath, he looked at me and asked, “You seriously wrote all that shit?”
I was as serious as hell. “Yeah… I mean that was just the gist of what I wrote. I ended up writing for around 7-8 pages, you know, so that I might get more marks.”
He laughed his ass out once again.
I was starting to get a bit irritated, and a bit worried too.
“What’s so funny? Did I not get my facts about our Mizo history right?” I asked him.
Finally, with a straight face, he said, “When they asked you to write an essay on the Bawih system in our Mizo society, they didn’t mean “bawiha”, “bawihi” and any of those romance crap. They meant “slave”. Hence you were supposed to write about the slavery system that prevailed in our Mizo society before it was finally abolished in 1914, how slavery worked, the two types of slaves, how slaves were treated etc…”
Pin drop silence.
“Oh…” was all that could come out of my mouth…
That was the first AND last time I ever decided to write the MCS (Mizoram Civil Service) exams. A True Story indeed.
.............
The young couple had been in love since time immemorial. They could be you and me, for they represent every young Mizo guy and girl in Mizoram.
In our Mizo culture, unlike most other Indian cultures, being in a relationship at an early age is not only accepted, but sometimes encouraged by our parents too. It is perfectly normal for young boys to visit a young girl at her house and woo her. This concept is called “Nula rim” (Nula means a woman who is single, and rim means to court).
Traditionally, during the process of “rimming”, it is the duty of the girl to welcome the guy (who is sometimes accompanied by his wingman) to her home. She makes tea for her suitor and sits with him in the living room. Then they talk about different things, trying to see if they have anything in common or whether he can make her laugh with his corny jokes.
Sometimes, she gets multiple suitors coming from different places (and such women are called “nula luck”). In such a scenario, the second suitor usually leaves on seeing that somebody’s already beaten him to the house, but there are also incidents in which guys from different places do sit together, each one trying to impress the girl and outdo the others (pretty much like a Group Discussion round of an MBA admission process).
Meanwhile, her parents too do not get involved and while most parents move to the bedroom to give their daughter privacy with her suitor/s, there are also some who do stay within earshot of the conversation, spying and listening to make sure nothing hanky-panky is going on and that no lines are crossed.
The girl eventually ends up liking one of the boys, and they soon become a couple. He lovingly calls her “Bawihi”, and she returns that love by calling him “Bawiha”. The words bawiha and bawihi means “Loved one”. People in love show their affection to each other by uttering those words to each other.
However the concept of “bawihi” and “bawiha” is not something new in our Mizo society.
During the days of “Zawlbuk” (a dormitory right next to the Chieftain’s house, where all the young lads of a village would sleep together. Useful especially if warriors from different clans raided their village as all the young men could quickly assemble and fight back), there were times when the girlfriend of one of the young warriors would hide behind the bushes below the Zawlbuk and wait for everybody to sleep.
Then she would gently call out, “Bawiha…” in the middle of the night. Her lover would then secretly leave the Zawlbuk and whisper back, “Bawihi…” In the darkness of the night, they would keep signaling “bawiha, bawihi” to each other and move towards the sound until they had found each other.
Such was the sweetness and romance of bawiha and bawihi.
.............
At this point, my friend could not control himself anymore. He fell to the ground and laughed uncontrollably, tears gushing out from his eyes. And then taking a deep breath, he looked at me and asked, “You seriously wrote all that shit?”
I was as serious as hell. “Yeah… I mean that was just the gist of what I wrote. I ended up writing for around 7-8 pages, you know, so that I might get more marks.”
He laughed his ass out once again.
I was starting to get a bit irritated, and a bit worried too.
“What’s so funny? Did I not get my facts about our Mizo history right?” I asked him.
Finally, with a straight face, he said, “When they asked you to write an essay on the Bawih system in our Mizo society, they didn’t mean “bawiha”, “bawihi” and any of those romance crap. They meant “slave”. Hence you were supposed to write about the slavery system that prevailed in our Mizo society before it was finally abolished in 1914, how slavery worked, the two types of slaves, how slaves were treated etc…”
Pin drop silence.
“Oh…” was all that could come out of my mouth…
That was the first AND last time I ever decided to write the MCS (Mizoram Civil Service) exams. A True Story indeed.
